Series / Ashes to Ashes (2008)

aka: Ashes To Ashes

Fire up the Quattro!
L-R: DS Ray Carling, DI Alex Drake, DCI Gene Hunt, WPC Shaz Granger, DC Chris Skelton

"My name is Alex Drake. I've just been shot, and that bullet has taken me back to 1981. I could be one second away from life... or one second away from death. All I know is that I have to keep fighting. Fight to live. Fight to see my daughter. Fight to get home."

A Spinoff from Life on Mars which started on 7 February 2008, and concluded 21 May 2010.

Detective Inspector (DI) Alex Drake (played by Keeley Hawes) is a police psychologist living in the year 2007. She was the officer responsible for debriefing Life on Mars protagonist Sam Tyler after he awoke from a prolonged coma, and has become fascinated with the mystery of his vivid accounts of living in the year 1973.

One day, Alex becomes involved in a hostage situation with a stranger who somehow knows both her and her parents. She is suddenly shot, and finds herself waking up in the same world that Sam Tyler inhabited, only now it's the year 1981 and in London instead of Manchester. Alex is initially convinced that her 1981 is a subconscious mental construct pieced together from her sessions with Sam, but there are inconsistencies with Sam's account, certain facts which Alex should have no way of knowing, and she's being stalked by the clown from David Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes" music video. Not to mention the presence of one DCI Gene Hunt.

When the events of this world start to intertwine with Alex's memories of the real world, she begins to wonder just what the nature of her new reality is, and if it would be possible for her to change history itself.

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This series contains examples of

• Afterlife Antechamber: Gene's world is a purgatory specifically for dead police officers.
• All Periods Are PMS: When Shaz is being uncharacteristically bitchy, Gene asks if she's "riding the cotton pony".
• Ambiguous Situation: The Grand Finale raises several questions about the nature of the Afterlife Antechamber created by Gene and several characters.
  • While Alex and Sam show that coppers near death can arrive there, it's unclear whether coppers who died retain all their memories upon arrival or if they completely forget. If the latter, that would mean the new copper who arrived is only near death but if the latter that would mean he could be dead while Chris, Ray, and Shaz slowly forgot the truth like Gene did.
  • Gene arrived in Limbo after being killed during the 1953 Coronation, which he then somehow turned into a world where he can live his Cowboy Cop fantasies and help coppers move on. It's never explained what Limbo was like before his arrival or whether there was anyone similar to Gene.
  • Gene, Alex, Ray, Chris, Sam and Shaz are all confirmed to be Dead All Along who then moved on. It's not explained whether Viv, Annie or Phyllis were real coppers who died tragically, or who all the other people in Limbo are such as the other officers at the station or the criminals they arrest. Is everyone simply a copy of a person from the real world who only exist to make Limbo feel more real, or are they all sentient people who just happen to have been created by Gene. Viv mentions that he helped start a riot to try and save his nephew while many of the other characters mention talking to their unseen families, while even Gene mentions having had a wife in Life on Mars.
    • Related to this is that Keats introduces Ray, Chris and Shaz to three officers, who he claims they will get to know better in his department. Were they simply artificial people meant to trick them, or are they demons like Keats meant to trick dead coppers into coming to Hell? If the latter, that raises the question of how many demons exist in Limbo and whether characters like Morgan from Life on Mars was one of them.
  • It's not explained how the Clown or the Test Card Girl fit into Limbo. While Keats appears to be a demon, or even the Devil himself, and Nelson is a St. Peter archetype, the origins of the Clown and the Test Card Girl are left unexplained. Given their menacing nature they might be some sort of demons like Keats, but it's also plausible that they are natives of Limbo.
  • Nobody attempts to explain why Sam, who seemingly discovered the truth, never told Gene or the others that they were all dead. It's also left unconfirmed whether Annie joined him in going to the Pub.
• Anachronism Stew:
  • A number of songs used in the series were out of time, such as Japan's "Ghosts" in series one, Duran Duran's "Is There Something I Should Know? in series two, and "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood and "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves in series three (although the latter was originally released in 1983, the version played was from 1985). Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" was released in 1983, but it features prominently in episode 3.2, set four months before the release.
  • Ray says in episode 1.2 that Bobby Moore "was in that movie, Escape to Victory", which was not released until a fortnight after the episode was set.
  • Alex sees a copy of Shakespears Sister's 1992 record "Stay" in the bedroom of her future ex-husband, young Peter Drake, in 1982.
  • The Grand Finale's action climax takes place at Gravesend Airport, which had been decommissioned in 1956 and re purposed as a housing estate long before the episode's 1983 setting.
• And the Adventure Continues: After Alex, Shaz, Ray and Chris have gone to Police Heaven, the show ends with Gene back at the police station, where a new DI has arrived and is wondering where his iPhone is. Gene's line to him — "a word in your shell-like" — is the first line he said to Sam Tyler, back at the start of Life on Mars.
• Arc Numbers: 6-6-20. In a bit of a Genius Bonus, has three different meanings.
  • First, it's Gene's badge number back before he got killed.
  • From the book of Joshua: "When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city." This is what Keats claims he's going to do to Hunt's stomping grounds.
  • It also refers to this passage from Romans "When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness." This is a reference to them all being in some sort of purgatory.
• Artistic Licence Cars: The Audi Quattro was not available in right-hand drive in the United Kingdom in 1981, only in left-hand drive. The car shown in the TV series is the 1983 model, with slight changes to the headlights and other features. Philip Glenister admitted that the production was aware of this and said, "But who cares? It's a Cool Car."

• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Final episode, up against Dutch gangsters:
  Gene: Droppen ze shooters, Ich bin bloody nicked!
• Ask a Stupid Question...: Chris asks a South African freedom fighter who is revealed to have killed several police officers ten years ago in a bomb attack back home if he's frightened to be returned to South African custody, even though they both know he will be tortured to death.
  Joshua: OF COURSE I'm frightened!
• Badass Driver: Gene constantly drifts and powerslides the Quattro in a ridiculously exaggerated fashion around the streets of London in almost every episode. He also barks at Alex for being silly enough to put her seatbelt on.
• Badass Longcoat:
  • Gene Hunt often wears a trench coat in this series.
  • And his camelhair Badass Longcoat from Life on Mars was given to another badass character - Jackie Queen - making them one, too.
  • Keats's grey trenchcoat.
• Batman Gambit: Gene Hunt pulls this off brilliantly in the episode "Traitor" to find both the traitor and the traitor's correspondent.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Alex and Gene
  Alex: Look at you. (places her hand over Gene's heart) It's beating. That's incredible.
  Gene: (retaliates by grabbing Alex's breast) Fan-dabby-dozy! Now then, Bollinger knickers, you gonna kiss me or punch me?.

• Big Damn Heroes : Lots of examples involving Gene Hunt (and a few with the others) with one notable boat based example at the end of the pilot.◊
• Big "NO!":
  • Alex's response to failing to save her parents.
  • When Shaz watches her own murder.
• Bittersweet Ending: The finale. Alex has helped Gene to remember who he is and what he's for, and she's been a major factor in shaking up the station and making sure that the others complete their stories; and Jim is (at least for the moment) defeated. On the other hand Alex really is dead, and will never see her daughter again; and although all of Gene's department have learned the truth about him and hold him in the highest respect, they move on and he doesn't.
• Book Ends: Spanning both series. The last episode ends with Gene welcoming another time-travelling comatose using the same line he used in the Life on Mars pilot.
• British Brevity: Three series of eight episodes each when it finished- about the same as one American season.
• British Conspiracy Thriller: S1 Ep. 4 is a parody of the genre and specifically of Edge of Darkness.
• Brotherhood of Funny Hats: The Masons who dominated the police force in the 1980s are portrayed this way in Season 2. Truth in Television.
• Butt-Monkey: Chris reprises this role from Life on Mars, demonstrating almost zero competence as a police officer for most of the series, although he has a larger screen presence.
• The Cameo: Geoffrey Palmer as Lord Scarman in series 1 episode 8.
• Casting Gag: Elaine Downing, the head of the dating agency in 3.2 who blatantly has the hots for Gene, is played by Beth Goddard, real-life wife of Philip Glenister, who plays Gene.
• Catchphrase:
  • Gene never seems to be able to say the word "armed" without following it up by "bastards".
  • Also "Let's fire up the Quattro!"
• Cerebus Syndrome: After a fairly fluffy first series, things started to get rather darker in the second, with the final third series veering into full-on horror at times.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Jim Keats's broken watch seems like nothing when it's first alluded to in 3.1, but becomes a major plot point in the series finale.
  • The whole trope is used obviously and all over the place in nearly every single episode, such as the faulty pink poofter's lighter that Chris and Ray use in 3.3.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Gene Hunt dresses in black and drives a flash red Audi Quattro, cementing his status as Anti-Hero, while Obstructive Bureaucrat Jim Keats wears all grey and gets around in a nondescript little Datsun Cherry.

• The Constant: Gene Hunt is Alex's and for good reason...
• Cool Car:
  • Gene's Audi Quattro.
  • Also in episode 1.2, the Thatcherite Wanker's DeLorean.
• Cyber Green: Each episode's closing credits, complete with winking cursor.
• Death Glare: A furious Gene Hunt fires one at Alex and Keats from his office, after DCI Litton is arrested.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Sally in series 2 ep 1, Supermac, Martin Summers, Louise Gardiner and Viv all die in either Gene's or Keats' arms. The fact that they do proves an important plot point.
• Dirty Harriet: Alex arrives in 1981 dressed as a prostitute, and the entire station thinks she actually is one—until she produces her warrant card.
• Distaff Counterpart: Alex Drake for Sam Tyler in Life on Mars.
• Doing in the Scientist: While Life on Mars left it ambiguous as to whether Sam was in a coma, or had time travelled, or anything like that, this series confirms that the world in which both series take place, is a sort of purgatory for police officers, Gene is actually something of a guide to help them move on so they can go to Heaven (not that he knows this intiially).
• Downer Ending: The series 1 finale.
• Dream Sequence: Alex's wacky dream sequences are a major part of the show.
• Drives Like Crazy: Gene Hunt thinks stacked boxes are there to be driven through... or so you'd think. The one time this seeming Chekhov's Gun presents itself - fully obstructing the exit from a tunnel, the Gene Genie slams on the brakes, pulls up short, reverses back through the tunnel and takes the long way round.
• Dying Clue: In the final episode, a fatally-wounded mobster's last words, "Vicky P-... drinking..."
• The '80s: Are to this series what The '70s was to Life on Mars.
• '80s Hair: Alex used to provide the picture for that page.
• Enemy Mime: The David Bowie-esque Pierrot (which is actually the clown from the music video for the New Romantic song "Fade to Grey" by Visage, originally portrayed by Visage lead singer Steve Strange) which replaces the Creepy Test Card Girl from Life on Mars
• Epiphanic Prison:
  • Alex has no real idea why or what the world she's arrived into is. She hopes that once she figures out where she is, she can figure out what to do to return back to her daughter in 2008.
  • In the finale, Alex discovers that she is dead and that, tragically, she cannot return to her daughter. She can go into heaven though.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Gene is sent into a tragic BSOD when he discovers that Chris is a traitor.

• Fanservice Pack:
  • Chris. In series 1 of Life on Mars, the production team gave Chris waterwings along with his swimming trunks to tone down the sex appeal. By series 2 of Ashes to Ashes, they had him being attractively postmodern to Shaz. Marshall Lancaster appears to have been working out in anticipation of more exposure in series 3.
  • Game of Strip Poker, anyone?
  • Chris doing a Full Monty strip.
  • Alex dressed as a hooker. And her Catwoman outfit.
  • Chris and Shaz in their New Romantic clothes.
  • Shaz in a hostess uniform.
  • The Gratuitous Sauna Scene and the Hot Vault Scene: Semi-naked and sweaty Gene.
  • Philip Glenister in semi-formal wear twice in series 3.
  • Some of the extras who appear in the show too. Namely Joanne Froggatt when she appeared. Not to mention Rupert Graves as the "yummy" Thatcherite Wanker.
• Firing One-Handed: In the final episode's climactic shootout with Dutch gangsters, Gene dispatches the last one by outdrawing him.

• Flanderization: Sexism was an incidental theme in Life on Mars, but takes a front seat in Ashes to Ashes. Accordingly, the male cops' sexism has been amped up to help make the point, especially in Gene's case.
• Foreshadowing: The pilot has quite a lot of this. Among them are Gene's remark "Until the last second, I’ll be out there making a difference" and Ray's comment to Alex, "If you’re smart, you’ll learn that being where the Guv is, is the right place to be," both of which turn out to be true on levels that neither of them expected.
• Framing the Guilty Party:
  • Ray does this in 1.03 because the victim is too afraid to go to court.
  • Alex and Ray do it again in 1.08., although it's more like "Framing the innocent party in order to place them in a prison cell and prevent them from dying".
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the finale, Keats who may or may not be Satan himself punches in a code to access the elevator room. Although the numbers aren't shown, anyone familiar with that type of keypad can tell that the code he keys in, is 666.
• Fully Absorbed Finale: Word of God says that Series 3 (which reveals the truth about Gene and his world) was meant to feel like Series 5 of Life on Mars (2006).
• Grim Reaper:
  • The Clown in season one.
  • Jim Keats appears to channel him at several moments in season three. Until it is revealed that Keats is actually a demon, or possibly Satan.
• Here We Go Again!: Last scene of the finale, calling back to the beginning of Life on Mars.
• Heroic BSoD: Everyone gets one of these in the final episode when they finally remember who and where they really are. They accept it by the end, however.
• Heroic Fire Rescue: Ray runs into a burning building when he hears a woman in there. This trope is subverted, because a fireman ends up saving both Ray and the woman from the fire.
• Heroic Sacrifice: An older member of the ANC confesses to murder, despite the prospect of being deported to South Africa and executed, to protect a young woman who actually committed the crime.
  Chris: Why did you cover for her?
  Joshua: Because I'VE HAD MY LIFE, Chris! Hers was ahead of her!

• Historical In-Joke: Turns out that Gene chasing a suspect was responsible for the 1983 vandalism of the Blue Peter garden.
• Homage:
  • Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" is delightfully recreated in a dream sequence at the start of an episode, with Gene and the rest of the gang as the blue-collar boys and Alex as the white bread girl. Behold
  • This also seems to be a homage to the dream sequences in The Singing Detective. The series as a whole shares many similar themes, and The Singing Detective was, of course, made in the 80s!
• I Call It "Vera": Gene keeps a crowbar in his office that he calls "The Search Warrant". Ray squees when asked to go and fetch it.
• I Want My Mommy!: In the finale, Shaz's reaction to watching a video showing how she died in the real world: ""I'm only twenty-six years old. I want my mum, Chris! I need to see my mum!"
• If You Die, I Call Your Stuff: Played for drama in one heartbreaking scene from the third series:
  Ray: You've been a good pal to me. I don't know how to say this without looking like a twat...
  Chris: Go on.
  Ray: Well. If you don’t make it out of here, can I have your mug? Only mine's knackered.
• Initiation Ceremony: Alex has to have her butt stamped as part of her initiation into the police force. This has some degree of Truth in Television, as this was a common hazing practice for female officers back in the day.
• Insistent Terminology: Gene keeps misrendering Alex's specialty as "psychiatry." The one time he gets it right — "psychology" — she corrects him anyway through sheer force of habit.
• Insult Backfire:
  Alex: Go to hell.
  Keats: [smiling] ...Alright!
• It Will Never Catch On:
  Chris: I've only seen that Countdown on it... Proper ambulance-chaser telly. It'll never last.
  Gene: Of course it won't.

• Karma Houdini: Joshua of the ANC in the penultimate episode, who Chris allows to flee from custody even after hearing that he killed several South African police officers with a bomb ten years ago. In their defence, Joshua admits he's no longer proud of that part of his life and wants to gain greater rights for black people in South Africa by peaceful means, and Chris knows letting Joshua be deported back to South Africa is effectively a death sentence for the latter.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Keats gives Gene a good kicking after headbutting him and throwing him through the doors of CID. The kicking shows Gene completely reverting back to his 19 year old self for a few seconds, in a moment of total vulnerability and helplessness.
• Kicked Upstairs: DCI Keats is strongly implied (especially by Gene) to be a pencil-pushing, bureaucratic desk jockey rather than a "real" policeman, only achieving his rank due to his ability to investigate the police force rather than actual criminals.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Trust us, you really need to have watched Life on Mars before you see the A2A pilot, since it ruins the ending. If you haven't, the shot of Sam's file clearly stamped "SUICIDE" - which is how LOM ended - is kind of a shock. This doesn't even take into account how confused you'll be when Season Three rolls around and the LOM references are flying right and left.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again:
  Gene: Detective Constable Christopher Skelton made a mistake that he deeply regrets. It ends here... You don't like it, you come to me.
• Literary Allusion Title: To be more precise, a Musical Allusion Title to the David Bowie song of the same name.
• Local Hangout (but not My Local): Local Italian restaurant Luigi's, situated right across the road from Fenchurch East Station. Otherwise known as "that place that sells cheap plonk." The restaurant is featured in every episode along with copious amounts of red wine being consumed by Fenchurch East CID.
• Locked in a Freezer: Alex and Gene are locked in an air-tight room at one point (with an increasing temperature in more than one sense), and Alex is left for dead in a freezer in a later episode.
• Magical Negro: Nelson, in a cameo at the end, who is implied to be a Saint Peter equivalent.
• Mind Screw: The end of S1: the man in Alex's memories turns out to be Gene Hunt, who is supposedly a fictional construct.
• Mind Screwdriver: Just for a change of pace, the Grand Finale in Season 3 actually explains much of the weirdness.
• Mistaken for Gay: Gene catches Alex embracing Caroline in series 1 episode 8.
  Gene: What the hell's going on in here? I've got enough beaver munchers downstairs without you two starting.

• Near-Death Clairvoyance: The last thing Alex remembers before waking up in 1981 is getting shot in the head.

• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • The motormouthed alternative comedian in 3.06 is unnamed but from the hair, the glasses, the suit and the confrontational leftie politics, he's very obviously meant to be the young Ben Elton; Alex even disgustedly tells him that he's going to "end up writing soft-rock musicals", a Shout-Out to We Will Rock You. This becomes a peculiar kind of in-universe Harsher in Hindsight when, moments later, he's accidentally shot, and indeed dies in hospital from his wounds.
  • 3.05 features a northern stand-up comic clearly modelled on Bernard Manning and his ilk.

• Nothing but Hits: Averted. While the music is from the 80's^note with the exception of a few songs from the late 70's, such as Kate Bush's "The Man With The Child In His Eyes" and Kraftwerk's "The Model" (though the latter, first released in 1978, wasn't actually a hit until 1982 anyway), lots of it is regular songs from the decade, rather than the biggest hits. Well known hits do come up occasionally, but not every single song is an iconic one.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: Snotty, weaselly DCI Jim Keats, who is in charge of "auditing" Fenchurch East CID throughout series 3. Even Gene's arch-enemy DCI Litton refers to Keats as a "pencil-neck."
• Oh, Crap!: Chris has a literal one of these in the beginning of season 2, when he discovers that the team are in sewer tunnel 69, not 96.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: London-born Gwilym Lee as Martin Summers' younger self did his best to imitate Adrian Dunbar's Northern Irish accent, but...
• Opening Narration: Unlike in Life on Mars, it changes as time goes on.
  • Series 1: "My name is Alex Drake. I've just been shot, and that bullet has taken me back to 1981. I could be one second away from life... or one second away from death. All I know is that I have to keep fighting. Fight to live. Fight to see my daughter. Fight to get home."
  • The series 2 one is a bit more concise: "My name is Alex Drake. I've been shot, and that bullet's taken me back in time. Now I'm lost in 1982, and all I can do is fight, and search, and stay alive. Because somehow, I will find a way home."
  • Series 3: "My name is Alex Drake. I was shot and found myself in 1983. Is it real? Or in my mind? Either way, I have to solve the mystery of what all this means and fight to get home. Because time...is running out."
  • The first episode of series 3 actually shortens it so much it borders on Lampshading — "My name is Alex Drake. And quite frankly, your guess is as good as mine."
  • The finale omits it entirely.
• The Peter Principle: Subverted. Chris never, ever makes it past Detective Constable in either Life on Mars or Ashes to Ashes, and Gene is extremely reluctant to allow Ray's long-awaited promotion to Detective Inspector in series 3. As is lampshaded several times by Alex and Keats, Gene is happy to ensure that no officer below Alex and himself is ever promoted, or handed a smidgen of individual responsibility.
• Police Brutality
  Gene: One more thing, luv, about police brutality.
  Jackie: What about it?
  Gene: Expect lots of it.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure:
  Gene: "Favourite Film - Thelma & Louise." Never heard of it.
  Alex: Hasn't come out yet.
• Pretty in Mink: Alex, in her posh hooker getups and her date outfit in 3.07.
• Prison Rape: Alex takes some delight in threatening her future boyfriend with this in 2.05:
  Peter: Will I go to jail?
  Alex: Possibly. And you'll probably end up sharing a cell with a great big bloke covered in scars and tattoos who'll call you his bitch.
• Psychological Torment Zone: For poor Alex, it is relentless. Fortunately, Alex's psychological training does help her to understand what is going on.
• Psychopomp: Gene's role seems to be to shepherd the souls of dead coppers who died with emotional issues to work out, give them time to come to terms with those issues and usher them on to the afterlife. Oh, and protect them from Keats, who may or may not be The Devil (or one of his minions).
• Punny Name: Maybe a Shout-Out to The Simpsons. When Alex gets Shaz to take messages for her, she takes them from Hugh Jarse and Mike Rotch, both used by Bart to prank Moe.
• Purgatory and Limbo: The final revelation is that the setting is Purgatory for dying and dead police officers.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: The creators' original intention was to make three series of Life on Mars, the last of which would have revealed the truth about Gene's world. However, John Simm was so burnt-out after two series that he couldn't go on to a third, largely because of the fact that he had to be in every scene because of the possibility the entire world was his coma-induced fantasy. Ashes to Ashes only happened at all because of this.
• Recycled In Space: Life on Mars (2006) WITH A FEMALE PROTAGONIST! IN THE EIGHTIES!
• Redemption Equals Death: It's subverted with Viv in series 3; his pained expression and the statement that police officers have to "finish the job" to be redeemed (which Viv never does) implies that Viv has ended up damned. This is further implied when Chris mentions having had a nightmare about Viv "hunched up amongst all this fire".. Also backed up by the fact that it's Keats who is with Viv when he dies, and not Gene.
• Refusing Paradise:
  • Alex at first refuses heaven twice.
    • At first, she wants to return to her home but then realizes she is dead.
    • Then, she instead asks to stay with Gene to help with his psychopomp duties, but she finally gives in and proceeds into heaven.
  • Gene also refuses heaven because he needs to stay and help other police officers through his purgatory.

• Rule of Cool: Inverted in a rare in-universe Lampshade Hanging of crime series' dramatically oversimplified police procedure and absence of the real-life tight regulations on violence and taking actions without a warrant (even in the 1980's), in the final episode.
  Keats: [looking unbelievingly at the team's shocked expressions after removing the ceiling to a view of the stars and revealing CID to be a construct of the afterlife] Oh, come on! You didn't think this was like, a real police station, did you? What?! You think that they actually worked like this?! IT'S HIS GAME!
• Satan:
  • Keats, revealed in the Grand Finale. Or possibly the Antichrist: Word of God has flip-flopped.
  • Arguably the Test Card Girl and DCI Frank Morgan from Life on Mars also represent Satan in different guises, as does the Clown in season 1 of the current series.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Chris releases ANC member Joshua from custody despite explicit orders not to, rather than let Joshua be deported back to what will probably amount to an execution in South Africa.
  Chris: I didn't join the police, guv, to be a party to state murder.

• Secret Test: Gene entrusts each member of his team with a crucial item in episode 2.07 — each in a different safe deposit box — to smoke out the mole.
• Sequel Series: To Life On Mars.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In series 2, Alex believes this is the reason that she, Sam and Martin Summers went back to years that were significant for them.

• Shoot the Dog: Gene does it literally in Series 2.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Alex gives one to a particularly nasty South African cop chewing the team out after a bomb goes off at the South African embassy.
  Alex: Oh shut your face, you racist git!
• Stopped Clock: A seemingly minor plot point. Whenever Alex asks Keats for the time, he gives her the same time: the minute she died. It later convinces her to move on to the afterlife.
• Strip Poker: Ray and Chris come up with a plan involving Strip Poker to undress two buxom blonde twins, however Chris's lack of skill in Poker results in him losing nearly all of the hands as well as his own clothes.

• Third Is 3D: A 3D episode was considered for the third series, but scrapped.
• Time Travel: Sort of. Alex wakes up 27 years back in time, but (at least at first) believes it to all be in her head. It is later revealed that it is in fact a separate world for the souls of lost coppers.
• Together in Death:
  • Chris and Shaz are together in heaven.
  • Gene and Alex will presumably meet again in heaven when Gene is done with his duties.
• Token Minority: Viv. Luigi, a bit.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Gene and Ray, and to a lesser degree Chris, are slightly more toned down compared to how they acted back in 1973. While they still occasionally Torture for Fun and Information, it's not exactly to the same degree as shown in Life on Mars. Episode 1.07 however has Gene, angered because he felt like a fool on national television, reverting back to this attitude by arresting and threatening suspects with such brutality that Alex is shocked while even Chris voices his surprise, with Gene simply saying that moving to London has made him go soft. When Linton appears in Series 3, he mentions how Gene and the others have gotten soft since leaving Manchester.
• Torture for Fun and Information: Aka The Gene Hunt Interrogation Technique, now in London:
  • In episode 1.02, has the the pool cue incident episode and there's also Gene throwing Mr. Bonds — a 60-something war veteran — down the stairs because Bonds thinks his son is innocent and is threatening to hit Gene with a baseball bat. Ray contributes by spraying soda water into Mr. Bonds' face when he calls Alex a cow and continues to refuse to cooperate.
  • In episode 2.03, Gene not only eats fish and chips in front of a vegan on a hunger strike, but sticks a suspect's head down a urinal and flushes.
  • Episode 2.04: Gene threatens to pour a chemical cocktail down a photographer's throat.
  • Episode 2.06: Four words — Gene and the crane. A corrupt businessman's thugs have come after both Gene and Alex, beating Gene with a baseball bat in an alley and intending to do the same to Alex if she hadn't hidden. One does not hurt women around Gene Hunt, especially women for whom he has feelings. Gene goes to find Riley, the businessman, handcuffs him to the inside of a car, and picks the car up with a forklift-crane, interrogating him about the murders they're investigating. Every time Riley denies all knowledge, Gene lowers the car nearer to the crusher. Just in time, Alex, Ray and Chris get to him with new evidence that proves Riley's innocence.
  • In episode 3.02, he holds a petty thief (whose only real crime is using a dead person's identity) at gunpoint and then in a headlock.
  Alex: Is this strictly necessary?
  Gene: No, but it's bloody good fun!
  • In episode 3.04, Gene chases a suspect through the Blue Peter garden.
  • Also in 3.04, he takes possession of DCI Wilson's nine-iron and commences whacking things off Wilson's desk unless Wilson comes clean about Louise Gardiner and the Staffords.
  • Truth in Television for the period, seeing as South Africa was still under Apartheid and the ANC was not above using violent means to achieve its ends. The British PM herself regarded the ANC as a terrorist organisation while at the same time pushing for Nelson Mandela's release from prison.
• Turn in Your Badge: Chris takes this initiative in series 2, but despite what he's done, Gene doesn't accept it.
  DCI Gene Hunt: Jail isn't your sentence, Chris. I am.
  • Shaz also tries to do the same in episode 3.2 but Gene convinces her otherwise.
• Ultimate Job Security:
  • Not only is DC Chris Skelton generally incompetent and slow-witted, but he indulges in extreme police brutality, espionage, corruption, destroying evidence and even letting a suspected terrorist walk free without permission to do so. Despite all this, he never ever loses his job and is basically unsackable.
  • Also DCI Hunt, who has two senior officers both variously attempt to destroy his career and weed him out of the police force. Gene comes out on top every time.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: In episode 2.05:
  DC Chris Skelton: Seems there's more to Gaynor Mason than meets the eye, Guv — about six inches more.
• Villainous Breakdown: Keats in the finale, complete with Trash the Set.
• Warrior Heaven: The setting is an afterlife for police officers who die in the line of duty. They have to work out their personal issues in this purgatory before they can be allowed to Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence.
• We Will Meet Again: Sung by DCI Keats / Satan in the finale.
• Will They or Won't They?: Gene and Alex.
  • And as of the finale — they kiss, but that's all.
• You Cannot Change The Future:
  • Played straight in the series 1 finale, when Alex's parents still die in the car bomb explosion, despite the crazy amounts of effort Alex puts in to prevent it over the course of the series.
  • Subverted in series 2 when Martin Summers murders his younger self, causing Alex to have a mini-breakdown over her own failure to save her parents.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: In the first episode, Chris corners Edward Markham, the main villain's chief underling, who smugly brags Chris doesn't have the nerve to shoot him. Chris promptly proves him wrong.
  Chris: Freeze, scumbag!
  Markham: Oh, don't make me laugh! Look, there are chaps who can pull the trigger and chaps who can't, and you, my friend, do not have- (Chris shoots him in the foot) Oh my God, you just shot my bloody toes off!
• Younger Than They Look: Despite having the appearance of a middle-aged adult, Gene is technically a nineteen-year-old boy (given that he died at that age and still retains much of his teenage mindset). It is implied that while in purgatory, he adopted the appearance he imagined he would have had as a seasoned adult cop.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters:
  • Gene and Alex argue about Nelson Mandela, whom Gene maintains is a terrorist.
  • Turns up again in the penultimate episode where members of the ANC (African National Congress) turn up in the flesh, and are treated with respect by the more progressive members of the team (Alex and Shaz) and the opposite by the conservatives of their time (Gene and Ray).

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Goodnight, all.